Five Smart Analyst Plays

If security analysts rated highly by research boutique StarMine are to be believed, the Wall Street consensus understates the earnings prospects for these five companies.

Since 1998, San Francisco's StarMine has specialized in identifying brokerage analysts with good track records for forecasting profits. The technique enables StarMine to create a "SmartEstimate," or an estimate that is weighted to timely calls from accurate analysts. For this group of stocks we looked at price-to-earnings ratios based on both the consensus estimate for next 12-month profits as well as StarMine's "SmartEstimate" for the same period. We then selected stocks that look cheaper based on the latter forecast.